The object of high speed uplink packet access technology is to improve the capacity and the data throughput in the uplink direction and to reduce the delay in the dedicated channels. The high speed uplink packet access technology introduces a new transmission channel: an enhanced dedicated channel, which improves the implementation of the physical layer and the media access control layer, and the uplink data rate can reach up to 5.6 MBPS theoretically. The high speed uplink packet access technology retains the characteristics of soft handover, a media access control protocol data unit received by an air interface is de-multiplexed into media access control streams and transmitted to a target radio network controller through transmission bearers corresponding to the media access control streams (each media access control stream has a corresponding IUB interface and/or IUR interface transmission bearer) via an Interconnection of type B (referred to as IUB) interface from a node B or an Interconnection interface between radio network controllers (referred to as IUR) from a radio network controller by means of uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames.
With the development of the technology, the dual carrier high speed uplink packet access technology is expected to be introduced to the existing system, which enables terminals to send data on two carriers with high speed uplink packet access technology, and thereby the rate of uplink data is multiplied. The carrier which comprises a high speed dedicated physical control channel in the dual carrier is referred to as main carrier, while the other carrier is referred to as auxiliary carrier. As to one terminal, each carrier in the dual carrier has its own independent enhanced dedicated channel activation set. BY the introduction of dual carrier high speed uplink packet access technology, it is required to consider the extendibility of the subsequent multi-carrier (such as three-carrier and four-carrier). The carrier which comprises a high speed dedicated physical control channel in the multi-carrier is referred to as main carrier, and other carriers are respectively referred to as second carrier, third carrier, and fourth carrier.
FIG. 1 shows a typical scenario of dual carrier high speed uplink packet access technology, and as shown in FIG. 1, a terminal uses the dual carrier high speed uplink packet access technology to send data over the main carrier and the auxiliary carrier simultaneously. The main carrier has its own enhanced dedicated channel activation set, which contains a cell 1 under a node B1 and a cell 3 under a node B2. The auxiliary carrier has its own enhanced dedicated channel activation set, which contains a cell 2 under the node B1 and a cell 4 under a node B3.
The terminal sends uplink data to the network side via the main carrier, and on the network side, the transmission path of the uplink data is:
(cell 1) from the node B1 to a radio network controller 1; and
(cell 3) from the node B2 to a radio network controller 1.
The terminal sends uplink data to the network side via the auxiliary carrier, and on the network side, the transmission path of the uplink data is:
(cell 2) from the node B1 to the radio network controller 1; and
(cell 4) from the node B3 to the radio network controller 2 and then to the radio network controller 1.
In the relevant dual carrier high speed uplink packet access technology, the enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode is defined to comprise a “share mode” or a “separate mode”. Wherein, the “share mode” refers to send the same media access control (referred to as MAC) stream received by all the uplink carriers in the multi-carrier on a transmission bearer; and the “separate mode” refers to send each MAC stream received by each different uplink carrier in the multi-carrier on a transmission bearer. When the transmission bearer mode of the enhanced dedicated channel is the “share mode”, in order to distinguish the MAC streams on the same transmission bearer received from different carriers, the “uplink multiplexing information” in an uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is defined, which is used for indicating the identifier of the carrier from which the data frame is received, such as the main carrier or the auxiliary carrier; and when the transmission bearer mode of the enhanced dedicated channel is the “separate mode”, the “uplink multiplexing information” can be empty or the “uplink multiplexing information” can be neglected by a receiver.
Under the “share mode”, on a selected transmission bearer, the particular mode of transmitting an enhanced dedicated channel data frame which carries the uplink multiplexing information is as shown in FIG. 2. The node B1 receives the same MAC stream-1s from both the main carrier and the auxiliary carrier, and sends the same MAC stream-1s to the radio network controller 1 by carrying them on the same transmission bearer-1. In the 2 uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames shown in the figure, the “uplink multiplexing information” is respectively filled with main or auxiliary to indicate the carrier from which this data frame is received is the main carrier or the auxiliary carrier. Likewise, as to the radio network controller 2, it receives an uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame from the node B3 and forwards the frame to the radio network controller 1; and the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is transferred on the transmission bearer-2 and transmission bearer-3, and the uplink multiplexing in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is set as main so as to indicate that the carrier from which this data frame is received is the main carrier.
Under the “separate mode”, on a selected transmission bearer, the particular mode of transmitting an enhanced dedicated channel data frame which carries the uplink multiplexing information is as shown in FIG. 3. The IUB interface connecting the node B1 and the radio network controller 1 has 2 different transmission bearers, wherein the transmission bearer-1 is dedicated to bear the data received from the main carrier, and the transmission bearer-4 is dedicated to bear the data received from the auxiliary carrier. The node B1 sends the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame of the data received from the main carrier on the transmission bearer-1, and sends the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame of the data received from the auxiliary carrier on the transmission bearer-4. Since the data received from the main/auxiliary carrier can be distinguished by the transmission bearers, the “uplink multiplexing information” in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is empty, or the “uplink multiplexing information” is neglected by the receiver. Likewise, as to the radio network controller 2, it receives an uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame from the node B3 and forwards the frame to the radio network controller 1; and the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame of the data received from the main carrier is transferred on the transmission bearer-2 and transmission bearer-3 which are dedicated to bear the data received from the main carrier, and the uplink multiplexing information in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is set as empty or the “uplink multiplexing information” is neglected by the receiver.
As to the radio network controller 1, it accumulates the uplink data from all the transmission paths. The received data from the main carrier and the received data from the auxiliary carrier can be distinguished through the uplink multiplexing information in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame under the “share mode” or the separated transmission bearer under the “separate mode”, and reordering and macro diversity combining can be carried out respectively on the basis of single carrier. Once the received data from different carriers are mixed up, the reordering and macro diversity combining cannot be carried out normally, which causes all the data wrong and the actual services unavailable. Finally, the network drops.
In the related art, the enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode information is configured for the node B or another radio network controller via an IUB interface or an IUR interface by a radio network controller, for example, in FIG. 1, the transmission bearer mode information is configured for the node B1, the node B2 and the radio network controller 2 via the IUB interface or the IUR interface by the radio network controller 1, and the transmission bearer mode information is configured for the node B3 via the IUB interface by the radio network controller 2.
In the related art, as to the node B and/or the radio network controller which only have the main carrier enhanced dedicated channel cell (such as the node B2 in FIG. 1), and the node B and/or the radio network controller which only have a auxiliary carrier enhanced dedicated channel cell (such as the node B3 and the radio network controller 2 in FIG. 1), their enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode information will not be set. Subsequently, these nodes B and/or these radio network controllers transmit the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame by means of single carrier, i.e. the same MAC stream is selected and carried on the same transmission bearer for sending, the uplink multiplexing information in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is set as empty or the uplink multiplexing information in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is neglected by the receiver, and the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is transmitted to the receiver.
However, the inventors have found that during implementation of the above method for configuring enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode information there are problems as follows: when the “uplink multiplexing information” in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is set as main carrier, the corresponding coded value is 0. When the “uplink multiplexing information” in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame is set as empty, the corresponding coded value is also 0. This means that all the coded values of the “uplink multiplexing information” in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frame of the data from the main carrier under the share mode, all the data under the separate mode, and all the data of the single carrier are 0. As to the radio network controller of the accumulation party (such as the radio network controller 1 shown in FIG. 1), the three situations cannot be distinguished, and only unified treatment will be performed according to currently recorded “enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode information” configuration information. Then, under the scenario shown in FIG. 4 (the difference from the typical scenario in FIG. 1 lies in that the cell 3 under the node B2 is a macro diversity cell over the auxiliary carrier frequency layer), according to the configuration mode in the related art, during the transmission process of the corresponding enhanced dedicated channel data frames, the enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode of the node B1 configured by the radio network controller 1 is “share mode”, and any enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode of the node B2 and the radio network controller 2 is not configured by the radio network controller 1. Then the situation shown in FIG. 5 will occur as follows.
The node B1 receives the same MAC stream-1s from both the main carrier and the auxiliary carrier, and sends them to the radio network controller 1 over the same transmission bearer-1. In the 2 uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames shown in the figure, the “uplink multiplexing information” is respectively filled with main or auxiliary to indicate the identifier of the carrier from which this data frame is received is the main carrier or the auxiliary carrier. The uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames are transmitted to the radio network controller 1.
The node B2, the radio network controller 2, and the node B3 managed by the radio network controller 2 transmit the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames in the mode of single carrier. That is to say, the same MAC stream is selected and sent on the same transmission bearer, the uplink multiplexing information in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames is set as empty, or the uplink multiplexing information in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames is neglected by the receiver, and the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames are transmitted to the radio network controller 1.
As to the radio network controller 1, it accumulates the uplink data from all the transmission paths. The radio network controller 1 deals with the data uniformly according to currently recorded “enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode” configuration information, i.e. “share mode” information. The radio network controller 1 will wrongly identify the original meaning (“single carrier and the encoding is 0”) of the “uplink multiplexing information” in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames transmitted in the mode of single carrier sent from the node B2 and radio network controller 2 as the meaning of “main carrier” also with the encoding of 0. The radio network controller 1 will wrongly identify the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames sent from the node B2 and the radio network controller 2, whose real air interfaces are from the auxiliary carrier, as the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames whose air interfaces are from the main carrier, and the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames whose the real air interfaces are from the auxiliary carrier are mixed up with the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames sent from the node B1, whose real air interfaces are from the main carrier. Once the received data from different carriers are mixed up, reordering and macro diversity combining cannot be carried out normally, which will cause all the data to be wrong and the real services unavailable. Finally, the network drops.
Under the scenario shown in FIG. 6 (the difference from the typical scenario in FIG. 1 lies in that the node B2 belongs to the radio network controller 2), the enhanced dedicated channel data frame is transmitted according to the configuration mode in the related art, in which the radio network controller 1 configures the enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode of the node B1 and the radio network controller 2 as “share mode”, and the radio network controller 2 does not configure any enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode for the node B2 and the node B3, and the situation shown in FIG. 7 will occur as follows.
The node B1 receives the same MAC stream-1s from two carriers of main carrier and auxiliary carrier and sends them to the radio network controller 1 over the same transmission bearer-1. In the 2 uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames shown in the figure, the “uplink multiplexing information” is respectively filled with main or auxiliary to indicate the identifier of the carrier from which this data frame is received is the main carrier or the auxiliary carrier. The uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames are transmitted to the radio network controller 1.
The node B2 and the node B3 transmit the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames in the mode of single carrier. That is to say, the same MAC stream is selected and sent on the same transmission bearer, the uplink multiplexing information in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames is set as empty, or the uplink multiplexing information in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames is neglected by the receiver, and the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames are transmitted to the radio network controller 2.
The radio network controller 2 plays the role of a drift radio network controller and can only transparently forward the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames received by the nodes B2 and B3 to the radio network controller 1. The radio network controller 2 is unable to make any modification on the contents of the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames received by the nodes B2 and B3.
Accordingly, the “uplink multiplexing information” in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames which are transmitted over the IUR interface is empty and the encoding is 0.
As to the radio network controller 1, it accumulates the uplink data from all the transmission paths. The radio network controller 1 deals with the data uniformly according to currently recorded “enhanced dedicated channel transmission bearer mode” configuration information, i.e. the “share mode” information. The radio network controller 1 will wrongly identify the original meaning (“single carrier and the encoding is 0”) of the “uplink multiplexing information” in the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames transmitted in the mode of single carrier sent and radio network controller 2 as the meaning of “main carrier” also with the encoding of 0. That is to say, the radio network controller 1 will wrongly identify all the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames sent from the radio network controller 2, whose real air interfaces are from the main carrier (the node B2) and the auxiliary carrier (the node B3), as the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames whose air interfaces are from the main carrier, and the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames whose real air interfaces are from the main carrier (the node B2) and the auxiliary carrier (the node B3) are mixed up with the uplink enhanced dedicated channel data frames sent from the node B1, whose real air interfaces are from the main carrier. Once the received data from different carriers are mixed up, reordering and macro diversity combining cannot be carried out normally, which will cause all the data to be wrong and the real services unavailable. Finally, the network drops.
Therefore, in the related art, according to this configuration mode, all possible scenarios are not taken into account carefully. The problem that the received data from different carriers are mixed up occurs, and the radio network controller is unable to distinguish whether the received data are from the main carrier or from the auxiliary carrier, so reordering and macro diversity combining cannot be carried out normally, which will cause the actual services unavailable. Finally the network drops.